Barcelona outlasts Bamberg for first home win

FC Barcelona Lassa recorded its first home win in the 2016-17 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague by downing Brose Bamberg 78-74 in yet another nail-biter at Palau Blaugrana on Friday. Barcelona improved to 2-2, sharing sixth place with five other teams. Bamberg dropped to 1-3 and a three-way tie for 12th place. Bamberg's three defeats have come by a total of six points. Despite losing yet another player to injury, Ante Tomic late in the game, Barcelona won with efforts of 18 points and 6 assists from Tyrese Rice and 13 and 3 assists from Victor Claver. Stratos Perperoglou had 11 points and 6 assists, the same scoring total as Tomic, who played only 16 minutes. Joey Dorsey had 8 points and was the game's top rebounder with 9. For Bamberg, Fabien Causeur scored 17 of his 19 points in the first half, while Daniel Theis matched his scoring and had 5 rebounds. Barcelona played without injured scorers Juan Carlos Navarro and Justin Doellman, but got a boost by the return of Petteri Koponen just a month after he was hospitalized following a car accident in which he was a taxi passenger. Koponen played 15 minutes with 2 points, 3 rebounds and 1 steal.

Back-to-back layups by Victor Claver and Tyrese Rice got Barcelona going but Causeur had 4 points in a 0-6 run that gave Bamberg its first lead, 4-6. Claver and Rice kept pacing Barcelona and a jump hook by Tomic gave the hosts a 13-10 lead. Dorsey took over with an alleyoop dunk but Theis and an unstoppable Causeur fueled a 0-7 run which Leon Radosevic capped with a jumper to put Bamberg in charge, 17-19. Free throws by Perperoglou fixed the score at 19-19 after 10 minutes. Maodo Lo followed a layup with a three-pointer to restore a 22-26 Bamberg lead early in the second quarter. Claver and Brad Oleson provided another lead change, 28-27, but Causeur scored 5 points in a 0-7 run that made Barcelona head coach Georgios Bartzokas call timeout at 27-32. Barcelona found a go-to guy in Sasha Vezenkov, who led a 9-0 run for a 36-32 edge. A layup by Oleson and a one-handed floater by Rice kept the hosts ahead, 40-38, at halftime. A jumper by Nikos Zisis kept Bamberg within 44-42 soon after the break. Tomic stepped up for Barcelona and three-pointers by Perperoglou and Claver gave the hosts some fresh air at 53-48. Theis kept scoring fluently and got help from Nicolo Melli and Zisis to keep the guests within 59-57 after 30 minutes. Rice nailed back-to-back three-pointers early in the fourth quarter and a layup by Oleson made Bamberg stop the game at 67-60 with over 6 minutes left. A fastbreak layup by Vezenkov and a big alley-oop dunk by Dorsey ignited the crowd at 73-65. Janis Strelnieks and Theis tried to change things for Bamberg and a driving basket by Darius Miller made it a two-point game, 76-74, with 6.3 seconds left. Vezenkov drew a foul, calmly made free throws and had a big block on Zisis to seal the outcome down the stretch.

Head Coaches

BARTZOKAS, GEORGIOS

FC Barcelona Lassa

"I have to say, and everybody has to understand, that it was a very important game for us after two consecutive losses in the EuroLeague. We had a bad feeling from everything happening in our team - our loss against Crvena Zvezda and the injury of Pau Ribas. By the way, I want to dedicate this win to him. I believe he had his surgery at the time of the game. I wish him the best and that he can come back healthy. Also, many players in our team are in different levels of shape. Petteri [Koponen] was out for two months, but played 15 minutes. He was exhausted sometimes, but it was important that he was back. Bamberg is a very consistent team, very patient. They have experienced guards like [Nikos] Zisis, [Janis] Strelnieks and [Fabien] Causeur, who control the game rhythm and don't panic even in moments when we were up by 7-8 points and had to go up to 10-12. Something happened every time, they always stayed in the game but finally, we got this very important win. We have to enjoy this win and get ready for the next game. We had a lot of players close to 10 points and that was important, no doubt about it. We have offensive players, it is obvious that we have players who can score. Our best scorers in Kazan, Juan Carlos Navarro and Justin Doellman, were out tonight, but many players were involved in our offensive game. I have to say that Bamberg is a different team to play against - they play with two forwards down low: Theis, Veremeenko, Melli, Radosevic, all good athletes. Everybody can shoot the ball and are a threat from the three-point line. Another reason to be happy with this win is that our defense was very effective for last six or seven minutes of the game."

TRINCHIERI, ANDREA

Brose Bamberg

"It is not easy to comment on this EuroLeague. We had two losses by 1 point - against Fenerbahce and Panathinaikos and tonight it was a last-possession loss. I believe we did a good job. We stayed in the game and lost the concentration at the end of the second quarter. They scored 6 points in a row in the same situation, twice. This changed the momentum in the first half. Then in the third quarter we were not able to find our offense, but managed to stay mentally in the game. There was a moment when we could have given our best effort, but missed 4 open three-point shots. It is obvious that we are missing something. We just need to work and grind to reduce this gap. We are not far from beating the big teams, but are not delivering. We miss one play, one effort, one good defense or one good offense. This EuroLeague is bringing on the table something that was totally unexpected. In tonight's game, the contact level and the difficulties is like we are in May, but this is October and teams are not ready. Every game is so important than it is unbelievable."

Players

VEZENKOV, ALEKSANDAR

FC Barcelona Lassa

"For me this was the toughest game until now because of all these injuries that we had. We had to stay together and win. The key was the toughness we showed in some moments. Even though we played at 50% of our defensive ability that I think we can play, we hustled, played with energy, and that was the key with stops we made at the end. We hope our injured players come back and we try to become better and better."

RICE, TYRESE

FC Barcelona Lassa

"We needed this game. I think it was a must-win. To go down 1-3 in this competition would be tough, cause a lot of teams playing really good now. To get that second win with everything going on was big for our team. I am happy Koponen is back on the court, I’m just happy he is playing basketball again. I can care less what he does, I’m just glad to see him on the court, see him having fun, see him smiling out there; that is most important for me. I had 7 turnovers by myself in last game, so having only 8 turnovers tonight as a team means we took care of the basketball, we got shots when we needed it, and that was major for us. It helped us have balance back on defense. They didn’t get much fast break stuff. It was perfect for us."

ZISIS, NIKOS

Brose Bamberg

"I think it is the same thing for us, we cannot finish games. Okay, they had control, they took the lead at the start of the fourth and were able to maintain it. Rice hit some big shots, also Barcelona made some big defensive plays. I think the good thing for us in these first four games is that we showed we can play against anybody, but there is something missing. We need to find it in order to get more wins and move up in the standings."

MILLER, DARIUS

Brose Bamberg

"Barcelona is just a really good team, they play consistent throughout the whole time. But I feel like we did a pretty solid job. We lost against really good teams so far, very experienced teams who do a great job of playing throughout the whole game. We just got to learn to get better."